How to access variable defined in directive to controller? - angularjs

I have to access variable defined in directive and access it in the controller using angularjs
directive :
app.directive('htmlData', function ($compile) {
return {
link: function($scope, element, attrs) {
$(element).on('click', function() {
$scope.html = $compile(element)($scope).html();
});
return $scope.html;
}
};
});
and use $scope.html in controller.

Since you are not creating an isolate scope (or a new scope) in your directive, the directive and the controller associated with the HTML where the directive is used are both using/sharing the same scope. $scope in the linking function and the $scope injected into the controller are the same. If you add a property to the scope in your linking function, the controller will be able to see it, and vice versa.

As you set the variable in the $scope, all you got to do is to bind to it normally. In your case, osmehting like:
<div html-data>{{html}}</div>
Maybe you're not seeing the update because it lacks a $scope.$apply().
Anyway, let me say that I see two problems on you code. First of, you could use ng-click directive to attach click events to your HTML.
Secondly, why would you recompile your HTML every time? There is almost no need for that. You may have a big problem, because after first compilation, your template is going to be lost, so recompiling will render it useless.
If you need to get the element, you can inject $element.

Related

Wait until require is ready within an angular controller

I need to require a property from a controller from another directive in my main directive, which is easy:
return {
...
require['myOtherController'],
link: function(scope,element,attrs,controller){
scope.propFromOtherCtrl = controller[0].propFromOtherCtrl;
}
But: the controller of my directive gets loaded first.
So at first, propFromOtherCtrl is undefined in the controller until the link function got executed.
Right now, i am $scope.$watching the property in my controller until it is defined and then kick off the initialization of my controller manually.
//directive controller
$scope.$watch(function(){return $scope.propFromOtherCtrl; },function(n,o){
if(n !== o){
// init
}
});
But that seems rather hacky. Is there a more elegant way of doing this?
I can not share the scope between the two directives directly because of the architecture of my app.
If the architecture is the only reason you cannot share the scope between two controllers, you can always use $controller to inherit one controller from the other, then you would have access to its scope regardless of the location in the html dom:
$controller('myOtherController', { $scope: $scope });
Another alternative is inserting the html part that triggers the directive into an ng-if that doesn't get initialized until the other controller is ready:
ng-if="propFromOtherCtrlLoaded"
Finally, in case neither of these suit you, using $watch is not that bad, except a small addition, stopping to listen to the changes, would make it more efficient:
var unreg = $scope.$watch(function(){return $scope.propFromOtherCtrl; },function(n,o){
if(n !== o){
// init
unreg();
}
});

Update controller scope from directive

I am creating reusable UI components with AngularJS directives. I would like to have a controller that contains my business logic with the nested components (directives). I want the directives to be able to manipulate a single property on the controller scope. The directives need to have an isolate scope because I might use the same directive more than once, and each instance needs to be bound to a particular controller scope property.
So far, the only way I can apply changes back to the controller's scope is to call scope.$apply() from the directive. But this breaks when I'm inside of an ng-click callback because of rootScope:inprog (scope operation in progress) errors.
So my question: What is the best way to make my controller aware when a child directive has updated a value on the controller's scope?
I've considered having a function on the controller that the directive could call to make an update, but that seems heavy to me.
Here is my code that breaks on an ng-click callback. Keep in mind that I don't just want to solve the ng-click issue. I want the best overall solution to apply reusable directives to modify a parent scope/model.
html
<div ng-controller="myCtrl">
<my-directive value="val1"></my-directive>
</div>
controller
...
.controller('myCtrl', ['$scope', function ($scope) {
$scope.val1 = 'something';
}});
directive
...
.directive('myDirective', [function () {
return {
link: function(scope) {
scope.buttonClick = function () {
var val = 'new value';
scope.value = val;
scope.$apply();
};
},
scope: {
value: '='
},
template: '<button ng-click="buttonClick()"></button>'
};
}]);
The purpose of two-way data binding in directives is exactly what you're asking about -- to "[allow] directives to modify a parent scope/model."
First, double-check that you have set up two-way data binding correctly on the directive attribute which exposes the variable you want to share between scopes. In the controller, you can use $watch to detect updates if you need to do something when the value changes. In addition, you have the option of adding an event-handler attribute to the directive. This allows the directive to call a function when something happens. Here's an example:
<div ng-controller="myCtrl">
<my-directive value="val1" on-val-change="myFunc"> <!-- Added on-change binding -->
<button ng-click="buttonClick()"></button>
</my-directive>
</div>
I think your question about $scope.apply is a red herring. I'm not sure what problem it was solving for you as you evolved this demo and question, but that's not what it's for, and FWIW your example works for me without it.
You're not supposed to have to worry about this issue ("make controller aware ... that [something] modified a value on a scope"); Angular's data binding takes care of that automatically.
It is a little complicated here because with the directive, there are multiple scopes to worry about. The outer scope belongs to the <div ng-controller=myCtrl>, and that scope has a .val property, and there's an inner scope created by the <my-directive> which also has a .val property, and the buttonClick handler inside myDirective modifies the inner one. But you declared myDirective's scope with value: '=' which sets up bidirectional syncing of that property value between the inner and outer scope.
So it should work automatically, and in the plunker I created from your question code, it does work automatically.
So where does scope.$apply come in? It's explicitly for triggering a digest cycle when Angular doesn't know it needs to. (And if you use it when Angular did know it needed a digest cycle already, you get a nested digest cycle and the "inprog" error you noticed.) Here's the doc link, from which I quote "$apply() is used to execute an expression in angular from outside of the angular framework". You need to use it, for example, when responding to an event handler set up with non-Angular methods -- direct DOM event bindings, jQuery, socket.io, etc. If you're using these mechanisms in an Angular app it's often best to wrap them in a directive or service that handles the Angular-to-non-Angular interface so the rest of your app doesn't have to worry about it.
(scope.$apply is actually a wrapper around scope.$digest that also manages exception handling. This isn't very clear from the docs. I find it easier to understand the name/behavior of $digest, and then consider $apply to be "the friendlier version of $digest that I'm actually supposed to use".)
One final note on $apply; it takes a function callback argument and you're supposed to do the work inside this callback. If you do some work and then call $apply with no arguments afterwards, it works, but at that point it's the same as $digest. So if you did need to use $apply here, it should look more like:
scope.buttonClick = function() {
scope.$apply(function() {
scope.value = newValue;
});
});

Can we link two controllers to a single custom directive

I tried to find linking of multiple controllers to a single custom directive, but no solution. Is this possible to achieve or not. Can anybody please tell me.
Requirement: I created a directive with a controller. I'm calling that directive in a page and the page is having its own controller. Now the page controller have a couple of functions. I'm using a template with some events. Those events are implemented in the page controller (parent controller). So those functions are not firing.
<div ng-controller="controllername">
<myDirective name-"name" event="doSomeEvent(params)"/>
In the controller i have a couple of functions like
app.controller("controllername",['$scope','function($scope))
{
$scope.functionName = function()
{
alert(1);
}]
}
This function is linked to the directive template. How to make this event fired?
my guess is that your directive has got an isolated scope.
meaning you have in your directive definition a line with scope: {}.
that makes it isolated and it can't see the parent scope (meaning that controller 'controllername' you have there)
remove the scope definition from the directive (remove the scope: {}) and you will have access to the parent scope.
and you will be able to use those function as if they were in the directive scope.

Use ngModel with plain ngController instead of directive?

In my application I would like to preserve the option of using plain controllers for certain sections of code - as opposed to creating directives for one-off things that will never be re-used.
In these cases I often want to publish some data from the controller to be used in the contained section. Now, I am aware that I could simply bind items in the controller's scope, however I'd like to specify the "model" location explicitly just to make the code more maintainable and easier to read. What I'd like to use is ng-model as it would be used on a custom directive, but just along side my plain controller:
<div ng-controller="AppController" ng-model='fooModel'>
{{fooModel}}
</div>
However I can see no way to get a reference to the generated ngModelController without using a directive and the 'require' injection.
I am aware that I could make my own attribute fairly easily by injecting the $attr into my controller and do something like:
<div ng-controller="AppController" my-model='fooModel'>
{{fooModel}}
</div>
In which case I just manually take or parse the myModel value and stick my model into the $scope under that name. However that feels wrong in this case - I really only need one "model" for a controller and I'd prefer not to have to add this boilerplate to every controller when ngModel exists. (It's the principle of the thing!)
My questions are:
1) Is there some way to use ngModel along with a plain controller to get the effect above?
2) I have been trying to figure out where ngModelControllers are stored so that I could look at the situation in the debugger but have not been able to find them. When using an ngModel directive should I see these in the scope or parent scope? (Where do they live?!?)
UPDATE: As suggested in answers below $element.controller() can be used to fetch the controller. This works (http://plnkr.co/edit/bZzdLpacmAyKy239tNAO?p=preview) However it's a bit unsatisfying as it requires using $evalAsync.
2) I have been trying to figure out where ngModelControllers are stored so that I could look at the situation in the debugger but have not been able to find them. When using an ngModel directive should I see these in the scope or parent scope? (Where do they live?!?)
The answer depends slightly on where you want to access the controller from.
From outside the element with ng-model
It requires "name" attributes on both the element with the ng-model attribute, and a parent form (or ngForm). So say you have the form with name myForm and the element with ng-model attribute with name myInput, then you can access the ngModelController for myFoo from the parent scope as myForm.myInput. For example, for debugging purposes:
<p>myFoo: {{myForm.myInput.$modelValue}}<p>
<form name="myForm">
<div ng-controller="InnerController" name="myInput" ng-model="model.foo"></div>
</form>
as can be seen at http://plnkr.co/edit/IVTtvIXlBWXGytOEHYbn?p=preview
From inside the element with ng-model
Similar to the answer from #pixelbits, using $evalAsync is needed due to the order of controller creation, but you can alternatively use angular.element.controller function to retrieve it:
app.controller('InnerController', function($scope, $element) {
$scope.$evalAsync(function() {
$scope.myModelController = $element.controller('ngModel');
});
});
Used, inside the controller to view it, for debugging purposes, as:
<div ng-controller="InnerController" ng-model="model.foo">
<p>myFoo: {{myModelController.$modelValue}}<p>
</div>
As can be seen at http://plnkr.co/edit/C7ykMHmd8Be1N1Gl1Auc?p=preview .
1) Is there some way to use ngModel along with a plain controller to get the effect above?
Once you have the ngModelController inside the directive, you can change its value just as you would were you using a custom directive accessing the ngModelController, using the $setViewValue function:
myModelController.$setViewValue('my-new-model-value');
You can do this, for example, in response to a user action that triggers an ngChange handler.
app.controller('InnerController', function($scope, $element) {
$scope.$evalAsync(function() {
$scope.myModelController = $element.controller('ngModel');
});
$scope.$watch('myModelController.$modelValue', function(externalModel) {
$scope.localModel = externalModel;
});
$scope.changed = function() {
$scope.myModelController.$setViewValue($scope.localModel);
};
});
Note the extra watcher on $modelValue to get the initial value of the model, as well as to react to any later changes.
It can be used with a template like:
{{model.foo}}
<div ng-controller="InnerController" ng-model="model.foo">
<p><input type="text" ng-model="localModel" ng-change="changed()"></p>
</div>
Note that this uses ngChange rather than a watcher on localModel. This is deliberate so that $setViewValue is only called when the user has interacted with the element, and not in response to changes to the model from the parent scope.
This can be seen at http://plnkr.co/edit/uknixs6RhXtrqK4ZWLuC?p=preview
Edit: If you would like to avoid $evalAsync, you can use a watcher instead.
$scope.$watch(function() {
return $element.controller('ngModel');
}, function(ngModelController) {
$scope.myModelController = ngModelController;
});
as seen at http://plnkr.co/edit/gJonpzLoVsgc8zB6tsZ1?p=preview
As a side-note, so far I seem to have avoided nesting plain controllers like this. I think if a certain part of the template's role is to control a variable by ngModel, it is a prime candidate for writing a small directive, often with an isolated scope to ensure there are no unexpected effects due to scope inheritance, that has a clear API, and uses require to access the ngModelController. Yes, it might not be reused, but it does help enforce a separation of responsibilities between parts of the code.
When you declare directives on an element:
<div ng-controller="AppController" ng-model='fooModel'>
{{fooModel}}
</div>
You can retrieve the controller instance for any directive by calling jQlite/jQuery $element.data(nameOfController), where nameOfController is the normalized name of the directive with a $ prefix, and a Controller suffix.
For example, to retrieve the controller instance for the ngModel directive you can do:
var ngModelController = $element.data('$ngModelController');
This works as long as the ngModel directive has already been registered.
Unfortunately, ngController executes with the same priority as ngModel, and for reasons that are implementation specific, ngModel is not registered by the time that the ngController function executes. For this reason, the following does not work:
app.controller('ctrl', function ($scope, $element) {
var ngModelController = $element.data('$ngModelController');
// this alerts undefined because ngModel has not been registered yet
alert(ngModelController);
});
To fix this, you can wrap the code within $scope.$evalAsync, which guarantees that the directives have been registered before the callback function is executed:
app.controller('ctrl', function ($scope, $element) {
$scope.$evalAsync(function() {
var ngModelController = $element.data('$ngModelController');
alert(ngModelController);
});
});
Demo JSFiddle

Is there a way to ensure directive scope is resolved before using it?

I'm writing an element-level directive that has a number of attributes on it. These attributes are then put into an isolate scope using the '#' modifier.
The directive is used on a page that populates the attributes with expressions i.e
<my-directive attr1="{{foo.bar}}"></my-directive>
I'm finding that when the directive controller executes, the $scope hasn't resolved the expressions yet. Is there a way to force the scope to resolve before entering the controller?
No, you can't force the scope to be resolved before the controller runs. Use $observe in the controller to asynchronously get the value (and to be notified whenever the value changes -- just like $watch):
controller: function($scope, $attrs) {
$attrs.$observe('attr1', function(newValue) {
....
});
}

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